


That is What Love is

by Thatoneloser_kid



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, but no details about it, insinuations of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 11:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatoneloser_kid/pseuds/Thatoneloser_kid
Summary: Prompt! Ellie and Dina are kidnapped and Ellie takes all the beatings and shit to protect Dina and when they finally get rescued Dina gets all mad at Ellie for protecting her. Just gimme some good angst pretty please





	That is What Love is

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any prompts send them to me on tumblr: Thatoneloser-kid.tumblr.com : )

****Dina had been injured as they were been abducted.

They had been thrown into what was essentially a none functioning walk in freezer as soon as they got back to the complex and Ellie immediately pressed her hands against the knife wound.

“You’re okay,” Ellie assured, looking into her girlfriends eyes.

“I will be,” Dina nodded, sitting herself up against the wall with a groan. “But you have to get out and get help.”

“Fuck off,” Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’m not leaving you here, we will get out of here just fine.

Dina’s wound wasn’t deep, and it wasn’t bleeding much, either, so Ellie knew she would survive just fine, but when the door opened hours later, something flared in Ellie as she stood, routing herself in front of Dina.

“Oh, kid,” the man smirked, gripping onto Ellie’s arm and yanking her forward. “We don’t care which of you we take.”

“Ellie?” Dina could feel panic rise in her chest as she watched her girlfriend being pulled from the freezer and the door slamming closed. She was up and banging on the door in seconds, ignoring the pain in her side. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”

Dina banged and banged for what felt like hours before the door opened again and she had a gun in her face.

She stepped back, her hands up, then Ellie was shoved into the room, her legs giving out and she fell to her knees.

“Let’s see how resilient you are, little girl.”

Ellie looked back, and Dina got a look at the wounds covering her face.

Ellie spat at the man, but it landed a few feet from him. He laughed and locked them in again.

“Ellie,” Dina breathed, rushing to Ellie’s side.

“I’m fine, I’m okay.” Ellie assured as Dina grabbed her face to her a better look at the bruise on her cheek and her slip lip.

“What did they do to you? What do they want?”

“I don’t know what they want, they were asking me questioned about the fireflies but I don’t know anything.” Ellie shrugged. “I’m not sure they believed me.”

Ellie sat herself against the wall.

“Are you okay?” She asked, eyeing the blood stain on Dina’s side.

“Fine,” Dina knelt down in front of Ellie. “They’ll come for us, you know? Joel, Tommy, Maria.”

Ellie wanted to believe her, she really did.

—

Dina didn’t bleed out with her wound but by the next morning she could feel a burning sensation and she knew what was happened.

She kept it from Ellie, because she didn’t really know how not to.

They came back the following day, and Dina braces herself to be taken, but Ellie was on her feet in a second, shielding her completely from the man at the door.

“Even after yesterday,“ he grinned, shaking his head and laughing. “This is gonna be fun.”

This time Dina could hear Ellie scream from whatever it was they were doing to her, and she could do nothing but bang and yell in the hopes it would stop them.

It didn’t, of course, and Ellie was brought back bloodied and bruised but still walking, clutching her side.

“Ellie?” Dina’s eyes were filled with tears as she cupped Ellie’s jaw.

Ellie managed to pull on a smile, entirely forced for Dina’s benefit. “They hit like men,” Ellie grumbled, like that was some sort of insult, and to her it probably was.

It got progressively worse after that, Ellie always stepped up for the beatings they endured daily, sometimes twice a day, no matter how much Dina protested.

The men seemed to be getting a sick since of satisfaction out of it, like it was some game to see just how far was too far, how far would stop Ellie from putting herself in harms way for Dina.

Dina got sicker, and within a few days she physically couldn’t hide it from Ellie anymore.

When she woke up that morning she knew all and any hope of convincing Ellie to stop taking any beatings that were meant for her went out the window.

Ellie’s eyes blinked open, and there was that brief moment in her eyes of forgetting, then her eyes hardened.

Dina was sweaty, and probably a little pale, and Ellie noticed immediately.

“Dina,” Ellie frowned, eyeing her with worried eyes. “What’s going on? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I’m okay.” Dina assured, attempting to side up but groaned, instinctively gripping her side.

Ellie understood immediately, pulling her shirt up to see the knife wound hadn’t healed at all, and was now an angry, puss filled red gash. “How long has this been like this?”

“It never really healed.” Dina admitted, “There was nothing we could do, there was no point telling you.”

“We have to get you help,” Ellie stumbled to her feet before Dina could argue, pounding on the door. “Hey, get in here.”

“Ellie, stop.”

The door opened to a grinning man. “You’re enjoying yourself so much you want it early, huh?”

“You need to help her,” Ellie demanded, jabbing her finger into the direction of Dina. “She’s hurt.”

“Kid,” The man laughed. “I don’t think you understand what’s happening here.”

“Please,” Ellie pleaded, her voice small. “She’s- She’s sick.”

“You’re both going to be dead come the end of the week, anyway.” the man pushed Ellie back, and Ellie stumbled, her body weak. “If she’s lucky she’ll die before we get to her.”

“I’m gonna rip your throat out,” Ellie snarled, teeth bared but the man just laughed and closed the door.

Ellie took a breath, steadying herself before turning to Dina. “We need to get out of here.”

“How?” Dina frowned. “We’re locked in here, there are no windows, we have no weapons.”

“We will figure something out,” Ellie said, glancing around the empty room.

“Ellie, baby,”

“No,” Ellie shook her head. “You spent the first while telling me they were coming for us, you had hope, do not lose that.”

“Ellie,” Dina sighed, and Ellie finally looked at her, really taking in how frail her girlfriend was looking, with the sickness and lack of food.

“You remember what I told you that first night we met?” Ellie said, rushing to knee beside Dina.

“When we were kids?”

“Fourteen but sure,” Ellie agreed. “You remember?”

“I was scared to leave the compound with you guys to go to the river,” Dina recalled. “You told me zombies were useless assholes.”

“Which they are,” Ellie hummed. “But I told you I would look after you. You came after that, you trusted me to look after you.”

“Of course I did, you were the strongest person I’d ever met.” Dina laughed softly. “But that shouldn’t be something that carries on now, you don’t need to do this.”

“We’re getting out of here, I will think of something.”

And she did, it just took her a few days.

A few days of beatings, and worse, a few days of Dina getting sicker.

Dina knew something changed when Ellie started screaming and yelling, and when Ellie came back that first time, she had completely retreated into herself.

“El,” Dina whispered, watching the broken girl slide down the wall. “Baby? Are you okay?”

Ellie nodded, almost robotically. It was an obvious lie but she didn’t push it.

The screaming and the fuck you’s continued, then one day they just stoped, and that was worse than hearing Ellie scream.

She panicked, was Ellie dead? No, there’s no way, nothing could kill Ellie.

Maybe Joel had shown up, maybe they were about to be saved.

The door opened a little over ten minutes later and Ellie was thrown into the freezer, her limp body hitting the floor with a sickening thud.

“Ellie?” Dina scurried across the floor to her girlfriend, ignoring the man as he locked them in again. She flipped Ellie over, relieved to see that she was breathing still. “Freckles,” Dina managed to force out around the lump in her throat. Ellie’s eyes flickered open, one a little swollen from the latest encounter. “You have to stop this, Ellie. You can’t take much more.”

Ellie looked a little smug, holding up a small dagger.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Get us out of here.” Ellie said in a gruff voice.

And, much to Dina’s surprise, she did.

Ellie was out of the freezer for all of ten minutes the next day before Dina heard two bodies hit the floor, then the door opened and Ellie stood there, dagger in hand, holding her side.

Everything else was a bit of blur after that. They took the dead men’s guns and fought their way out of the building, and then Ellie heaved her up onto a horse.

Dina passed out a little bit into the journey, but Ellie had learned from past mistakes and used the rope that was holding the horse to tie Dina to her.

When Dina woke up she was in a hospital bed.

She didn’t panic, she didn’t have the energy, and the first thing she noticed when Ellie beside her, clutching tightly onto her hand.

She was dazed, her eyes unfocused on the wall across from her, Dina’s hand against her lips.

“El?”

Ellie focused on Dina, a soft smile pulling on her lips.

“Welcome back,”

“How long was I out?” Dina questioned.

“Few days,” Ellie kissed her knuckles. “The infection almost killed you.”

“But you got me out,” Dina sighed, almost dreamily. “You protected me.”

“Always,”

The dreamy look dropped and Dina punched her shoulder. “What the fuck were you thinking, you could have died.”

“Hey!” Ellie snapped, rubbing her shoulder.

“Don’t pull shit like that again,” Dina warned. “I’m not worth you dying.”

“Of course you are,” Ellie argued with a frown. “But let’s not do this now.”

“Fine,” Dina grumbled. “But we are talking about this.”

Ellie nodded, bringing Dina’s knuckles back to her lips.

“Ellie, are you okay?”

Ellie’s eyes glazed over for a second, and she shook her head minutely. “No.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dina whispered, pulling Ellie in with their joined hands, allowing their foreheads to rest together. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

Ellie shook her head, tracing her fingers down Dina’s jaw as she looked into her eyes. “I will be okay.”

“Did you kill the main two?”

“I did, and we killed a majority of the camp.” Ellie said. “They were- I don’t really know. There was crosses and religious shit all over the place, I don’t know if it was them who were religious or the people they took the camp from.”

“Why did they take us?”

“I just- I think they were just looking for some fun.”

“ _Fun_?” Dina snapped incredulously. “They left us to starve, they tortured and beat you, they-“ Dina’s throat closed up at the words that almost slipped from her lips. “Please don’t do that again, don’t protect me.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Ellie swore. “But I am never going to stop protecting you, Dina. I don’t care how much it hurts, that’s what love is, right?”

“Yeah but you don’t understand what it was like knowing that them beating you within an inch of your life was because of me. Seeing you hurting, suffering and I could do nothing.”

“It wasn’t because of you,” Ellie shot back, a little frown on her face. “I didn’t have to do what I did, I did it because I love you. But it was not your fault.”

“Just- Please, don’t die for me, I don’t want to live without you.”

Ellie nodded, kissing Dina’s knuckles. “I will try not to.”


End file.
